But lots of Americans think that Americans are stupid, too. They don’t think they are the dumb ones, of course. They think other Americans are stupid.

It will not, even if you’re an idiot, come as a shock when I admit here that one of the Americans who think Americans are intellectually challenged is … me.

I know moronitude is ubiquitous, but …

Moronitude exists everywhere, of course.

But what makes stupidity in America stand out is that most Americans — the dumb ones, I mean — don’t even think it’s bad to be dumb. Far from being ashamed, they’re dumb and they’re damned proud of it.

And the dumb ones even make fun of the small and constantly shrinking population of intelligent ones as clueless hopelessly out of touch.

Want to study astrophysics? You’re a nerd. No prom date for you!

Do you know that bogus story going around about Hillary Clinton selling Uranium to China is wrong? Don’t say so on Twitter. Trump fans will tell you you’re just a mindless, brainwashed idiot. Never mind the facts. Maybe you are also a traitor.

For the new wave of stupid Americans, facts aren’t worth more than opinions they come up with or the fake stories they find on the many bogus news sites that target them.

Even dwarf-tossers think Americans are dumb

Now, I haven’t been everywhere, but I have traveled a lot. And what historians have documented as the tradition of anti-intellectualism in America seems to be pretty unique.

Even Australia, land of our cultural Anglo-Saxon brethren, where dwarf-tossing was a thing (and for all I know it may still be), never had an actual political party called the Know Nothing Party.

America did have such a party. It did. And not only that, but when historians reference the Know Nothings, no one ever chortles in derision. Instead they nod knowingly. Maybe.

The U.S. is a country where smart people have to pretend to be stupid

This, after all, is a country in which smart people have to pretend, in the words of an old 1980s song by Flipper, to “act stupider than you really are” in order to fit in.

Reality TV and televangelists aside, nothing epitomizes the national cult of stultification more clearly than our electoral politics.

On the Republican side, there are well-read men and women of considerable accomplishment and impressive educational credentials who pretend to believe things they obviously know to be untrue — because so many of the voters they need are just that damned stupid.

And that’s how they relate to them.

When US president-elect Donald Trump claims that global warming is a myth China foisted on America in order to destroy our economy, listen, he knows better. His followers don’t, though, and they find such comments refreshing, something they themselves might’ve come up with if they were just a bit more … clever.

Ted Cruz, no dummy he, pretends not to believe that climate change is caused by humans, too. Because that is what he (correctly) thinks his mostly uneducated base of lower middle class Americans and Bible thumpers want to hear.

And he is right. It comforts them.

And forget about that nutty bunch of governors and senators — senators! — who claim to think the Earth is about 6,000 years old because: Bible. Most of them ust pretend to believe that “God” wants them to believe this ridiculous fairy tale.

Why? Because ignorance is good for business. And that’s something even the stupidest Americans can get on board with.

Get this: George W. Bush is actually smart.

Just last week, a friend who hung out with George W. Bush told me something I’ve heard often enough before to believe: the guy is actually smart.

In a way, this comes as a relief, because: launch codes. Also Yale and Harvard.

Even a legacy admit shouldn’t be half as much of the colossal idiot brush-clearing hick Bush pretended to be his entire political life.

All along, there were hints of Bush’s non-stupidity. Every now and then, his aw-shucks cornpone veneer would flake off, and the Connecticut Yankee inflection of a grandson of Prescott Bush would peek out like the cobblestones and streetcar tracks of an old paved-over road after a hard winter.

That stupid accent — all fake!

Which reminded me of something Bush biographer Kitty Kelly reported: After losing a local election in Texas, Dubya swore, Scarlet-like, to never get out-countrified again.

And he didn’t.

And it worked.

How depressing.

Obama and Hillary Clinton purposely downscale their brains, too.

Given how much I used to beat up Generalissimo El Busho while he was bombing and Gitmo-ing and bank-bailing, it’s only fair that I point out: Bush isn’t the exception.

He’s one of many.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton both apply a reverse-classist downscaling filter to their locutions.

And Jesus H. W. Christ, it’s so over-the-top phony, I cannot believe I am the only one who has noticed.

On the power of stupid-sounding accents

Speaking of which, I attribute all of the popularity that Bernie Sanders and Trump enjoy to their unscripted authenticity, part of which derives from both candidates’ unspun, startling, old-school New York accents.

Listen to Bernie. He sounds like a throwback from Welcome Back, Kotter once he gets going.

You see, even for Bernie, platform planks have taken a back seat to reality. Which really says something.

And would you believe Trump is actually smart?

It’s true. Yes, I know Trump often sounds like an idiot in his speeches and especially on Twitter, where he tweets with the grammar and vocabulary of a fourth grader.

Despite “The Apprentice” and the Ivana mess, despite not having much of a grasp on economics, science or world politics, Trump still feels he has to dumb himself down still further.

Case in point: That dorky “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.

His calculated attempt to seem uneducated works wonders with his huge base of seriously uneducated working class supporters. And he knows it.

Trump knows what it took the mainstream media so long to get: That a huge swath of Americans are dumb — stupid, really — and they are happy to stay that way. In fact, they wear their stupidity like a badge of honor. They are proud of it.

So why are Americans so stupid and so proud of it?

Burying the lede as much as I can, what I want to know is: Why? And what went wrong with America that caused generations of kids to grow up stupid? What could possibly have make this okay?

This explains why so many among Trump’s dedicated base of “deplorables” has so much trouble determining facts from opinion online, and puts real news and Politifact, the Pulitzer-winning fact check site from The Poynter Institute on equal par with the fake news pedaled by so-called “conservative news” sites like Infowars.

They don’t know how to put what they read into perspective — or how to check out the outrageous claims such sites try to feed them. It isn’t that these people are stubborn, it’s that they were never taught any better — and their reasoning skills aren’t sophisticated enough to make them try. That’s a failure of American education.

And so the vast majority of American kids in this country end up as grownups who believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion, each as valid as any other.

Even though this cannot possibly be true — even though you can’t argue a fact with an opinion, no matter how loud, nasty or insulting you get — they believe it nonetheless.

Also, maybe the fragmentation of the media caused by Internet technology, which allows minds unschooled in logic to sit around eating their own crap editorial dog food all day, is responsible, too.

208 Comments

“I blame our schools. We learn facts, but not how to think.”
That’s true to a certain extent. As a retired teacher, I take exception. I tried my best to get my students to think and to reason. I ran into much opposition from administrators who wanted me to lower my standards and teach to the lowest level. Too many teachers willingly submit to this coercion. I refused. And I suffered much abuse because of that. I still shudder when I think of a workshop I attended, where the teachers were presented with the hypothesis: Using a “given” you should propose a goal for your students. One of the teachers, obviously oblivious to what a “given” is, stated: “Given a pencil, the student will draw a picture of a house.” Of course, this was in Arkansas — what more can one expect?

Other teachers have told me that parents also hate it when their little
snowflakes are taught critical thinking, reasoning and logic. The little
buggers come home and challenge their parents’ stupidity, and Ma Nitwit
and Pa Numbskull can’t handle it.

ROFL you took abuse as the teacher, I took abuse as the student!!!! The worst part is that you could figure out where the lectures were going by actually thinking or reading ahead, then getting in trouble for skipping ahead. I hated my pubic (not public) school, transferred into a private school for hitch school that caught all of my basic math and English to only fall prey to social pressures from roughly half of the population to not be so smart in a school full of really really smart teachers and students.

The only part of my education that I cherish is college because at least I can choose which teachers BS I want to put up with and make decisions based on other students reviews. I could write a freaking book about how a smart kid can turn into a teachers worst nightmare from purposeful and well timed classroom disruptions just to get revenge on the system that disgraced me for trying to make school more than a daycare.

College today is what was standard in our schools in the 1940s and 50s. Evolution does NOT make us smarter. Only more one sided about issues and as a result makes it easier for us to be manipulated.

Americans deserve a police state as we have lower to no standards of what’s right and wrong so therefore we need a police state or it will be absolute anarchy when there is no law to catch the criminals and people have no way to think for themselves due to needing government protection. Well they think they need it anyways.

In reality when you do need it the protection will seem to not be there.

Necessity and will makes us learn more. I rescued a nine month old puppy about five months back. After the first few weeks I noticed he was pulling just my dirty socks from the laundry basket and piling them up the front door.

I’m in college late in life, and I am endlessly appalled at what I see of the stupidity and laziness of my classmates.

In my English classes, we usually have to peer-review each other’s papers. Very few of my classmates can write a coherent paragraph, except those of us educated before the 1980s. Over half of my classmates start research papers with “The topic of this paper is ______”. I kid you not. I finally got so tired of seeing this stupidity that I tell repeat offenders, without hesitation, that they would have flunked my 7th grade English class in 1975. Because they would have. Don’t even ask how they do with the rest of their grammar and mechanics. It’s not a pretty sight. I’ve gone through so many red pens that I finally started buying them by the dozen. People complain to the professors about how I cover their papers in red until it looks like Manson edited their work. I tell them I’m making up for the buckets of ink their English teachers should have dumped on them through high school. I don’t appreciate having to do that job for them, and pay to do it, no less.

For pity’s sake, they should have taken a class with my sophomore English teacher in 1978. That old bag started teaching in 1948, and if you got out of her class with a high B, you were considered the next Hemingway. I still have nightmares about her, nearly 40 years on. Whenever I write, I feel like she is watching over my shoulder and ready to stab me to death with a red pencil if I dangle a participle or split an infinitive. These kids today could use some of that fear of an English teacher. It would make my peer reviews far less painful.

I work in one of the academic departments on campus. During the first week of class, y’all wouldn’t believe how many of these nitwits would come to us, asking where their classes were and when, exactly, they started. Most of the time, they didn’t know the professor’s name. Some
of them didn’t even know which of our classes they were taking, only that it was math, so we surely knew where they belonged! They would be mad at us for telling them at that point to go look it up on their online page. It simply never occurs to them how we cannot help them if they don’t know what class they’re taking.

Yes, our schools are failing them, and badly. Do you have any idea how badly? It’s worse than any of you think.

I assisted with registering some of our new students, 25 at a time. In all of those sessions, I would encounter maybe–maybe–5 students who did not need to take either a developmental math or English course. Over half of them had to take both.

Are any of you surprised that the average community college, especially in moroncentric states like Texas, must offer as many or more developmental English and math courses as they do “college level” courses, or they wouldn’t have enough students to keep one building open?

actually you have a point about older generations allowing this nation to de-evolve into brain dead ‘morans’ as the asshole sign holder above shows us. they believed the MSM after the ludicrous JFK assassination by not a lone gun nut but by the CIA, using former military assassins, firing at the president like a clay pigeon. the fact the ‘morans’ bought the Warren ConMission report 53 years ago now is a stunning reminder about how stupid this country is, how poorly educated it is, how brain dead it is.

but you, the young generation being absolved? Pffft!!!!! you are preoccupied with your fucking cell phones, and too into your Talmud Visions to get a clue about what’s really going on.

There are so many generalizations being made and an exceptional amount of country bashing. America is a country with unique diversity dumb to smart they may have been grown here or immigrated from another part of the world. Education systems in the us are not the same or equal among the states. Some states have vastly different methods of funding and structuring schools. I personally went to schools in 6 different states. They are vastly different. Some schools are funded by property taxes from the community they serve more affluent can sometimes equal better schools. I learned Latin in some schools and budget balancing I others. We are not all angry right wing or left wing extremist. Some of us try and make the country a better place that will hopefully impact the world. We have much to learn from the rest of the world as well as from our own mistakes. We don’t all drive SUV’s eat garbage and have health problems. Some of us racist some intolerant some of us hate guns others cling to that right. The region you reside can greatly impact how you view yourself, the world and the country. I will continue to try and understand fellow humans views and ideals and try and grow as a person sharing those ideals with others and caring for the planet and all of its living things. We are all the same race and have much to offer each other .

All of americans are dumber than box of rocks including presidents, bush invaded afghanistan only to find out that bin laden was in fact in pakistan, but of course being an american he didn’t see the difference..

To say ALL are dumber than a box of rocks, tells me you that you would fit in well with a group like the KKK. You know- the ones who look at everyone in an entire culture, race, nation, religion as having a hive mind and being exactly the same.

With all due respect, the Taliban were in fact in Afghanistan training soldiers and terrorists, all the while terrorising the country and the people living there, many soldiers from around the world went there even after Bin Landen, to help out the people living there from the Taliban. There has also been speculations that the American government used 9/11 as an excuse to invade because of an economic motive. Its really not that black and white and no government in any country are ever completely honest and straightforward, its a net spun of lies and conspiracies hidden from the public.

Now I get it. They are acting like they are stupid. Now I know not to take a stupid remark from an American all too seriously. Really? You know, what makes me think Americans are stupid is that some (most?) people think soy is bad for the health whilst I know this is not the case (like there is this main stream ignorance on certain subjects). I like tofu and honestly, my body likes it (it’s science’s fault though. Science assumes and claims certain things (while it hasn’t been backed up in real life; like “proven”; like really eating tofu daily) and the populace believes those claims (There is a difference between thinking something is true based upon a scientific model and really having experienced it as true: Science is riddled with such problems; Really, in my eyes, too stupid.) Obviously there are smart Americans out there. I like my American friends and my favorite meditation tracks have been made (thought out) by an American. Stupid Americans are just so obvious. It’s like the internet is riddled with them. The same can be said about Japanese people as well though. I guess stupid people are everywhere. (I’m half-Japanese by the way.) ps: If tofu would be bad, Japanese would have known this. Many people have it in their diet, daily. It’s normal.

I have worked in some type of customer support/service whether it has been tending bar or in IT.

I can honestly say that most Americans today are devolving intellectually.

My IT career took off because I began noticing just how lazy minded other techs and business owners truly were/are. They get away with it because so many Americans just do not WANT to learn anything new. So they have no idea what good work is until someone comes along who actually does a quality job and does not rip them off.

I was given some very lucrative federal government tech work for very simple migrations and breakfixes. When I took my first job at a US Congressman’s office I could not believe the stories his staff shared with me from other techs. One guys showed up twice to change out the battery in a UPS. He could not figure out how to do it. It was bad enough this baffled him. It was unacceptable that he could not use this device called the Internet to research something so easy.

Here is a paraphrased yet spot on example of the same exchange that I have had dozens of times with different people around North America after someone accidentally unplugs a power cable from their server or workstation. They had never heard of this power cord/cable stuff. So after I try to explain to them how electricity gets into an electronic device for five or more minutes, I rephrase the question to help them.

“Do you have a lamp at home?”

“Yes.”

“How does it get power?”

Silence.

“I turn the light switch on.”

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“When the battery gets low and you need to charge it, where do you plug it in?”

“My car. My computer.”

“What if you do not have a car or computer around? Where do you plug it in to charge?”

Silence.

“Oh. I use my wall charger.”

“Ok. That is a type of power cord/cable.”

“Oh! Okay! Hold on!”

Minutes go by.

“My wall charger will not fit into this computer though.”

I do not think a week passes that some other American bragged to me that, “Well… I am not tech savvy.” They mimic this nonsense with pride.

Other teachers have told me that parents also hate it when their little snowflakes are taught critical thinking, reasoning and logic. The little buggers come home and challenge their parents’ stupidity, and Ma Nitwit and Pa Numbskull can’t handle it.

Actually you of all people should understand that the government owes us nothing and demonstrates that very fact every day. If you want to understand why Americans are becoming brainless idiots, you only have to look to the media. We are spoon fed, every bit of crap that the government and its watchdogs can imagine. Trained not to question anything, but to accept every line of spin that gurgles out of the mouth of self-infatuated officials, hell bent on controlling us. Be a good American lap dog and speak, that’s it, roll over and play dead.

I have become convinced that anti-Americanism is now a knee-jerk reaction in Australia. Australians just repeat what they have been told about America; they spew the same tired quotes (lacking in any metrics or observable evidence) about the U.S. then pat each other on the back for being superior. But then the run out and buy whatever movie/music that comes from America.

What is ironic is that Australia and U.S. are practically INTERCHANGEABLE.

By the way, how is the new efforts at White Australia going? Have you managed to confine all of the brown immigrants on a remote Pacific Island or just some?

The rest of the world (which happens to include Australia in case you weren’t taught that in school) have watched, heard and felt American behaviour all their lives. Many are simply fed up with it and tend to switch off when they hear the nasal whining, bellyaching and ‘gimme-gimme-i-want-me-first’ syndrome, which appears to be unique to those born, raised and educated on U.S. soil.

Australia and the U.S. are NOT interchangeable and never will be. The fact that we’ve had political ‘leaders’ (for want of a better label) who’ve had to have their names printed on the soles of their shoes so we know which one of them is up the latest President’s arse, does not equate to ‘interchangeable’. It simply means there’s Murdoch controlled puppets in Parliament.

As for ‘white Australia’ policies, you continue to demonstrate your ignorance. Not everyone in Australia is of that persuasion or leaning.

Your posts demonstrate exactly what is wrong with this article. It is interesting that I mentioned how Australians make charges against the U.S. that lack” any metrics or observable evidence” and you respond by making charges that lack any metrics or observable evidence. In an article accusing Americans of being anti-intellectual you fail completely to use any intellectual analysis. You provide exactly zero evidence (that is measurable and/or can be found in a replicated evaluation).

As for the rest of the world, I don’t think you speak for the rest of the world (not for lack of trying, I would surmise). I have been to 30 countries on four continents so I am perfectly knowledgeable of world geography.

You sound like an over-emotional 22 year old who has just discovered that there is injustice in the world and you are looking for a boogey-man to blame. You blame problems in Australia on a few bad leaders, but then state that Americans have some innate faults that come just from being born and raised there? Your subjectivity is glaring

By the way, until Australia takes back Murdoch (the #1 reason behind the rise of the right wing nut jobs here), then Australia can just stop pointing fingers.

Aussie’s tend to think for themselves; they don’t take crap, they don’t fawn over self-styled career politicians, they certainly don’t swallow the bs corporate political wannabe’s try to dish out and most importantly of all, they don’t take themselves seriously, unlike some.

As for the rest, why do you think we’ve had 2 hung parliaments in recent years? That sort of thing can’t happen in a nation of gullible people.

One final note: politicians don’t get to ‘demand’ respect in Australia (unlike America); they have to earn it – and that certainly hasn’t happened in my lifetime.

Ugh, we are stupid. So f*cking stupid its gotten to a point where I can’t even defend it because I end up in racist arguments with white people all the damn time. I don’t want to defend it. Arguments that go nowhere, its like arguing with a toddler, over-privileged morons too stupid to communicate with. All they know how to do is piss you off. I’m Asian. Whenever it comes down to it I’m a foreigner and *YOU* are an American…. No, you are IRISH! Or w/e the hell you are, MURICA! MURICA! Tf do you sleep using the flag for a blanket?!? You sound f*cking retarded, America did this — America did that! Proud for no reason. *YOU* didn’t do anything! Ya’ get that right..? Does that compute?! Is it getting through your thick f*cking skull?? Every immigrant applying for citizenship knows more about America than you do. This isn’t even a country, its like a refuge for all people, you sh*t on the Native Americans and f*cked them over and then you act like you belong here simply because you’re white. The whole thing is a joke and if you look close enough you’ll see white people don’t even give a sh*t about white people, none of it makes any sense. We’re a nation of animals and we only know how to buy and waste, react on impulse, we turned eating into a sport so we can be proud of being fat-asses, everybody has an opinion but nobody does anything, they just b*tch and moan whenever they get a chance just to act like righteous pricks. We idolize whores and sell-outs. We f*ck up everything like the plague and we can’t wait to spread it around the globe all while believing we’re doing the right thing, seriously?!?!? This country is f*cked and it got that way because of the very people who are proud of it, parasites. We make me sick smh.

This is incredibly racist. I agree that this country has tons of bigots and racist, but of all colors. There are people of all races and backgrounds who have prejudices against other races and backgrounds. Maybe if we stopped getting on the Internet to write a bunch of rude intolerant crap, and sought to understand the people around us rather than trying to make everyone understand us we could live much happier lives together.

What I love about this is how sabotaged this response was coming off the conveyor belt.

White America could make this weak, non-fat argument if it had just settled down and allowed POC to become Americans. But White America has fought tooth and nail to make certain everyone of color looks like, feels like and is treated like The Other while reserving “Americanness” for themselves.

As a result your argument makes no sense because White America have run this show into the ground for 250 years. White Americans socialized everyone here on some level and racist POC are no mystery. You can’t steep a people in aggressive racial bigotry for centuries and expect them not to pick it up.

I think it’s a good thing Americans need to learn how absolutely stupid and wrong they are about everything!!! Their whole life is big fat lie that their self entitled retarded asses defend to the death they are hopeless retards they are all doomed.

But if the whole world joins together and calls them out this could change!!!!

It’s this dumb American attitude you have rite here that its a bad thing and unacceptable to call someone out. Which in fact no it is not it is positive guidance it is healthy and a necessary step in fixing the problem.

No its something that’s been bothering me for over a decade something i have noticed. The rapid decline in intellegnce in american people its very disturbing and sad iv divoted a lot of time figuring out why exactly they are so damn stupid. Its pretty complex but iv figured it out.

Kitty, You are simply screaming Americans are dumb without giving any reasons. I don’t usually point this out either but calling people stupid while having several misspellings in your post tends to make me scratch my head. One of the most glaring is your misspelling of intelligence!!

Hell yeah they are! I was born and raised in this trash heep. So i know first hand how dumb they are. I don’t consider myself american i am very anti american and i only sochialize with foreigners. And for good reason. americans seem like mindless monkeys to me. I mostly prefer the company of Japanese met some smart frech people as well and some australians. Indians are really smart too i like people from Denmark and Holland also Sweedish people are very smart as well. But americans forget having a meaningful intelectual conversation with one of them….

Most of American’s *true* achivements have been in the early 20th century with people who knew what they were doing and were not afraid to get a little dirt on their clothes.

Most of our state parks on the west coast and engineering marvels such as the BPA or ski resorts came from hard working CC workers who were not afraid to pick up a construction tool and use it in an appropriate matter and we did not have the paranoid nanny safety police state yet things got done on time.

Our biggest achievement was having two oceans separating us from the devastation of WW2. Only reason we ever became a superpower was by rebuilding Europe and Asia with our still intact production facilities. Not because we are the greatest country on earth, but because we were lucky enough to be away from the actual war.

Exactly. There exists an overwhelming myth in this country that an exceptional populous created the economic superpower than the United States is today, when it was honestly exceptional circumstances, rather than people, that were the lynchpin of our *former* success. It ain’t coming back, Ohio et al.

That’s the White American way, like when a Black guy is on the News for shooting someone, all these dumb white hicks start pulling the Racist card calling them Nggers, this shows you the true color of White Americans sadly, I mean if you think about it who in their right mind burns people on a Cross because of they skin color, fucking sick people

USA is an intellectually dead country. If you live in this country for some time, you will understand this. Food, Money and Guns-thats pretty much all the values that they have ( and yea, also dumb exceptionalism, aka we are the best ). There is really nothing for the brain here. Highways, food chains and endless shops. Not a single museum, theater or decent library or just anything that would stimulate mental or social activities. If you go to a public school, its a very sad and depressing experience. Its structured in a way that people are discouraged from any thinking, just a pure mechanical learning and training. No creativity, no personal appreciation of any kind.
Remember 2008, a bloodthirsty Mccain and his Alaskan souvenir Palin who couldn’t even articulate thoughts into words properly-they almost took the office. The humankind was so close to a nuclear war at that time. Now, they are into Trumpy Dumpy, an egocentric racist and psychopath. If he gets in, we are all most likely doomed for extinction.
Very scary indeed. The world should be more afraid of dumb, consumer-driven American society than of terrorism and global warming.

Most of the hard working people up to the 1990s were the 30s and 40s generation grown up as adults still knowing hard work values and even then when mass immigration came crime always went up and police overloaded.

Those hard working people are now on pensions and retirement. When they die off who’s going to pick up the pieces?

Americans work harder and longer than any other industrialized Western democracy and take the fewest sick days or vacation days. We work ourselves into the ground over here! They call it “the Protestant Work Ethic” because it so neatly typifies not only the people who founded the country and defined its ethics and values, but each succeeding generation that buys into those myths and mores. Americans are increasingly stupid, but no one can say we’re lazy.

And, like good trained simians, on our days off, we consume to fill the widening void. Fascism, people. With our awful educational system grooming us for meaningless serf like occupations is the norm; where we learn from the youngest ages that obeying authority without question and not asking any questions equals success; and where mediocrity of every form is rewarded, we are heading right for Fascism. It has been dressed to look like democracy.

That is what you call theatre, not reality. The reality is we are owned by our masters, whom we will never see, who regard us as little more than slaves. On some level, it’s little wonder people retreat into anti-intellectualism. The future is grim and the present is numbing.

The museums here in DC stay pretty busy. However, a lot of that could be tourists from other countries. Anytime I go, even during weekdays, they are never dead. I have no idea the numbers. I’d have to google it.

“USA is an intellectually dead country. If you live in this country for some time, you will understand this”

Maybe it is intellectually dead, maybe not. But I find it odd for you to declare to know the level of intellectualism of the U.S. and then use subjective observations as evidence. A rant is just a rant…very anti-intellectual.

You do talk some utter rubbish “A rant is just a rant…very anti-intellectual.” no it’s not you idiotic imbecile, a rant is just a rant meaning it has no bearing in intellectual prowess. Please try to think before saying such deluded b.s.

Do you know what else is non-intellectual? Referring to a complete stranger as an ‘idiotic imbecile’ based on a three sentence response (and an anonymous one at that).

A rant is speaking in a wild, impassioned way. I don’t know if you can get FARTHER from intellectual prowess than that.

Perhaps if the author or the poster would use some observable evidence (and not just cherry-picking phenomena that they don’t like) then they might have a point. But just screaming Sarah Palin! Donald Trump! Know-Nothing Party! is not evidence that Americans are stupid. And the Know Nothing Party? The author clearly doesn’t even know how that group got its name if he is using it in this context.

This author is no more intellectually honest than those that yell Benghazi at Hillary Clinton.

Where is your sources for this? What evidence do you have? My test scores? IQ score? Maybe some qualitative data from previous employers and teachers? Surely you understand that simply disagreeing with you isn’t strong evicence of me having an IQ of 80….”sweetie”.

Your ‘hit-and-run’ comments on this page suggests you have a lot of opinions. But that is about all that your comments suggest.

Source: your posts
And yes, knowing a lot of things means you do have opinions -= oh and my IQ is over 180, and MQ even higher. And it isnt agreement that is the issue, it is your lack of rational capacity.

The upside to this reality is, for those who are smart and industrious, there is plenty of room to innovate and prosper and sell things to those who are too dumb or lazy to create productive things. Although, I do have faith in the younger generation, those who are teens now. They have inherited the horror that is the world of climate change, overpopulation and ongoing wars, and seem to understand how to love, community and empathy.

No I’m sure Mike isn’t kidding. I absolutely agree with him. You should see Adam ruins everything on his take that are is no such thing as a generation. What exactly is a “millennial” anyway? No way to define them at all but I’m sure you think you can.

We have a lot of wonderful museums here in DC. I’ve enjoyed our museums since I was a young child. Perhaps you should come visit and see for yourself. There’s the Air and Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, the National Art Gallery, National Museum of African American History and Culture, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Newseum, the International Spy Museum, and many, many more. If you’re here during the spring and summer, be sure to check out the beautiful butterfly gardens!

Please, come to DC. Let’s meet and I will show you the great spots. Not just the museums, but also beautiful places like Rock Creek Park (on the Maryland side) and more. I don’t know where you are, but here we have a lot for people of intelligence.

I grew up in the DC area, but have traveled across the US and lived in Florida for a while. But, there’s no place like home. I will bear winter snow any day to be here at home!

I do agree with you. Being American has become an embarrassment. That’s how I found this article, by googling “realizing so many Americans are stupid”. I knew there were a lot of loud and proud dummies out there, but this election has really brought them out of the woodwork.

I love Rock Creek Park. Used to walk there all the time (near the old mill). Very calming.

Don’t let a bunch of ideologues turn you into an over-emotional, fact-free sycophant like them. The United States is awesome. And it is terrible. And it is everything in between;.just like pretty much every other country. The U.S. is in a fairly unique position right now, however, so people rant against it in an effort to make themselves seem more important and smarter than they actually appear to be.

It would be nice if they were actually interested in constructive criticism towards the U.S. instead of just being snarky little bitches trying to impress their friends.

As an American who has lived in the UK for over ten years now the evolution question keeps cropping up, Brits just cannot believe that about half of all Americans believe in creationism and even worse a 6000 year old Earth.
I used to put most of this ignorance down to religion, but nowadays, sadly, I honestly believe half of our countrymen are simply dumb.

As a German, growing up around the world always visiting private American schools (received the american high school diploma amongst others), can sadly only support the lack of minimum standards the American education system has. Don’t get me wrong, the USA is a fascinating country with a hand full of the smartest people of the world. Not to mention many of the best universities and extremely competitive and revolutionary in R&D. However, as this article/commentary already somewhat point at, it is in the advantage of the oligopoly to keep the dumb as dumb as possible.

The never ending routine where the big industries i.e. corn, oil, wall street, telecommunication (the list goes on) sponsor and elect indirectly who will get a shot to become president. And because there is so many millions necessary the even become part of the presidential race, it will be impossible to keep this corruption out of the game. Unless you change the game of course.

What do the richest 1%, or should I say 0,01%? Simple: i. Keep more than 50% stupid enough not to notice there is an oligopoly in place. ii. Keep the rich, so fucking rich (sometimes it is kinda cool to look how rich you can get in the USA but common, so many million of people suffer per billionaire). iii. Stupidity mixed with fear also is a problem. Media is constantly blaming the world for all trouble i.e. ISIS terrorists, Europeans socialists, mexicans stealing jobs, the list goes. Only the dumb are able to believe that everyone else is a threat to the US, and this allows them to break sovereignty of other countries (especially if it fits nation interest), but also privacy from american citizens. Secret services spy on the German government, so logically it is easy as hell to spy on the average american. Every time you mention a word that goes against the system a light somewhere goes off in an office of the CIA, FBI or whatever group organisation is out there to ‘protect’ you guys.

Trump? Not a problem, it doesn’t matter who gets voted. Obama, with his genuinely smart appearance got voted with for american standards quite liberal/socialist or whatever you wanna call it, views. Yet, nothing changed for the better. After 8 years of presidency Guantanamo still stands, waterboarding still happens and the average american is still too stupid to stand up truth, fairness and equality.

You make a concise and correct estimation of the political and social dynamic at work in the US today.The most difficult thing in the world is acknowledging responsibility and making reparation if possible.The US has a great deal to own up to both domestically and internationally. It will never, in my estimation,accept blame for any of the destruction it has rained down on the planet.Its military power makes that kind of honesty unnecessary. I think the rest of the world understands this. They know that the US is like a volatile guest you invite into your home who may or may not end up destroying it depending on whatever self-interest moves him.”Best safety lies in fear” when dealing with he treacherous US. So why concern ourselves with their election entertainment? The American populace will get what they have nurtured and what they deserve -true,but inevitably, their choice will be inflicted on the rest of the world. Their farcical election would simply serve as a source of amusement and further proof of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their society for anyone of normal intelligence were it not for the fact that their possible election of a dangerously belligerent, gasconading buffoon endangers the rest of the planet at a crucially pivotal moment in world history:climate change ,the refugee crisis, war, economic instability,the rise of reactionary forces and a multitude of other urgent problems face humanity. In any other context, intelligent, rational and logical people would be seen as the last best hope for the world. The German Chancellor,the new president of Italy, my country’s new leader Justin Trudeau, and many , many other brilliant, humane, and visionary leaders are attempting solutions. The fly in the ointment is the US. Their delusion that they alone possess the road map to the future, that their way is the only way,that the rest of humanity is looking to them for leadership, that they do the thinking and doing for the rest of the world is endangering all of us.Together we must repudiate them and all that they stand for.There is a whole world of intelligent ,educated, dedicated,honest,expert people who have answers and solutions to propose and implement if allowed to. The world has been down the road of lunatic ideologues dragging civilization down into the pit only to realize when it’s too late that they’ve made a terrible mistake and that the cost will be horrifying. Even the Americans, when they’re not dancing with the stars or shooting each other, have seen what the consequences are of electing stupid people : the destruction of Iraq ,the war in Afghanistan. the rise of the Middle East murderers and on and on…They must have some thought that they have to elect someone who won’t guarantee destruction but they are the most frightened and intolerant people on the planet and fear makes you stupid.That’s what terrifies me.

Why are you using political situations as evidence of American stupidity? These examples might represent poor policy decisions but they don’t necessarily represent stupidity.

If Americans are really more stupid than the rest of the world then give a body of evidence. Don’t just list everything that offends you. Providing examples of political actions that offend you is not evidence of stupidity. It is evidence that you disagree with American policy.

The inability of so many posters on this site to provide evidence to support their ideas is scary. And highly ironic considering the mud they (you) are trying to sling.

The chant of USA USA made by mindless idiots reminds me of a Nazi rally. Americans are taught this ridiculous “exceptional ism” from such a young age that some of my smart friends are stupidified why I don’t believe in this bulkshit.

I know Jimmy. I much prefer chants of Black live matter! Socialism now! and all the violence that goes along with liberals and their lack of tolerance for anyone who dares disagree with them ROFLMAO You’re a prime example of the morons we have in this nation

Cruz and Kasich have shown their true colors . They are both officially bought and paid for stooges of the RNC and their corporate backers.

How does one respond to Jimmy D and those other naive and brainwashed supporters of Cruz and Kasich who are noting but unwitting slaves of the Republican Party. Those who support and corrupt rules like Cruz, Kasich, Romney, . Big money corporate PACs and these brain dead Republicans who defend our corrupt Party dedicated to insure that Republican voters will NEVER have a say. The RNC is only about maintaining their control over the American people who they view as stupid sheep.

Their only wish is to keep sheep like you in line so you can vote for the stooges they choose for you to vote for. As long as you sheep are content voting for the stooges they put up for you to vote for…. They win and the voter loses!. And like a good little slaves you continue to defend the very rules they use to enslave you!

There is no difference between the ignorant fools on here that defend these corrupt rules and the fools who defended the rules requiring blacks to sit in the back of the bus / drink only a colored water fountain/, or use colored rest rooms.

Wake up and smell the coffee my brain dead Cruz and Masich supporters. Take back America and destroy the Republican Party as it stands. We must rebuild our Party from the ground up. We the people deserve transparency,honesty, and a party that reflects the view of Americans, and not a bunch of right wing religious nuts who want to legistate their religious views on the rest of us and use their religion to perpetute hate and discriminate against not only gays and women, but against even we Americans with Christian values who beliive in tolerance for all points of views and a total an complete separation of church and state. We refuse to go back to the days of McCarthy like Cruz wants us to.. Vote Trump 2016 and make America and the Party great again

Wow Bob. Such a long winded rant for the assumption that I’m a Cruz or Kasich supporter. I’ve tried to explain it to you but there’s more than liberal and conservative out there. I’m glad Trump is taking away the Republican base who were voting for candidates that didn’t support their interests but rather that of the one percent. But please note Trump is pulling the wool over their eyes as well. He’s just shouting talking points that appeal to you. I doubt he believes most of the crap coming out of his mouth.

@Jimmy D There are still many brain dead Americans whom the elitists in the RNC and their corporate backers LOVE. Too ignorant to realize that the RNC and the DNC have manipulated the Constitution by using corrupt rules to control them.

The Parties and their stooges like George Will are there to maintain the Party’s control over the American people whom they deem as stupid sheep, by using corrupt rules to insure that only our only choices to vote for are the bought and paid stooges they pick for us. In that way regardless of who wins ……………….They Party and it’s Corporate backers maintain a firm grip over the people.

No thanks to our media clowns, the rules used by these the Parties to control the American voter have been exposed during Trumps unexpected popularity brought on by the lies and corruption caused by the RNC and it’s stooges! Americans are finally waking up to the fact that any rule or set of rules which discriminates or denies the rights guaranteed to Americans under the Constitution iare inherently corrupt and must be destroyed.

To those of us who are no longer brainwashed, it is clear that whether it’s a rule requiring blacks to sit at the back of the bus/ drink only from colored water fountains / use colored rest rooms or a rule denying Americans the right to vote for the candidate of OUR choice then those rules are corrupt and must be destroyed.

Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party use their rules in an attempt to manipulate the choices Americans are allowed to vote for so that the Parties can maintain control of our government by denying Americans a real choice. Trump and to some extent Sanders have thrown a monkey wrench into the system. This may be our last chance for the American people to take our nation back. If we listen to Will and his cronies we lose. If we don’t elect a man like Trump now I guarantee that the Parties will change the rules to insure the the American people will never have a real choice again.

Vote Trump/ or Sanders …..and take back America before it’s too late. Will and his ilk would prefer to destroy this nation rather than give up the power and control they wield over the people of this great nation

Thats what they said to Galileo Galilei. And Pythagoras, and Darwin, and anyone else who challenged hte dominant religion. Sadly yours is jingoism. Why dont you look at the evidence on just how damn corrupt your electoral and legislative system is ffs.

According to IQ tests, the dumbest Americans are black—their average IQ is 85. But at least that’s higher than the average sub-Saharan black IQ, which is a tremendously embarrassing 70. Thanks for bringing up this very important subject.

Every day I am becoming increasingly disgusted with what I call the “dumbification” of America. It has been many years since I graduated high school and walked the halls of “higher education”, but it seems to me that the average American has lost the ability to think logically or to form a conclusion based on reason. Is this due to our educational system, or is it more deeply rooted in popular culture, which seems to glorify celebrities who lack the most basic abilities to think on a critical level? Laziness and ignorance are replacing ambition and the desire to learn about the world and all of its wonders.
One topic that comes to mind is the average American’s inability to communicate effectively. I am blown away by the disappearance of proper grammar, spelling, and basic sentence structure in today’s pop culture world. I have received messages and emails that were completely void of capitalization and punctuation. Are people becoming more stupid as the years pass, or do they simply lack the pride and self-esteem to do things properly?
Critical thinking is especially important when it comes to politics and one’s ability to understand the inner workings of our embarrassing political system. Do people actually thoroughly research the candidates’ records and past performance, or do they simply take everything at face value, becoming confused and mislead by 30 second campaign ads? People are swayed by rhetoric and charisma instead of concrete facts.
Wisdom and knowledge are being shunned, and some people are simply too stupid to recognize their own ignorance.
I don’t know what the answer is to this growing problem, but I sincerely hope that this trend turns around quickly. Our once proud American culture has become the laughing stalk of the civilized world. I weep for this country as its citizens become sheep that mindlessly follow without questioning where they are being led. If our country is to survive and continue to be prosperous, mainstream American must once again become proud to embrace knowledge, reason, and we must all take pride in even the most menial tasks which comprise our daily lives.

*cough* MEXICAN border *cough* but yeah, he is definitely the opposite of smart. And really, I agree that we as Americans are not THE smartest (and admitting it is not something to be proud of) but every country still has its own share of “dumb” people. This is not just a national problem, but more of a Worldwide problem. Its like needing stitches in many different places, like your lip and chin, and you only look at one of the biggest and think that it is the worst, while even the smallest cut could still end up killing you.

I never really knew much of this “American Ignorance,” and honestly, the most ignorant people in my school are the “smartest” and are “going places.” My school has a very good educational system as well, where we do “learn how to learn” and our Art/Music system is almost bigger than our sports are (which is kind of good considering most Americans become dumb from the millions of concussions) and we were not taught that every opinion is “relevant,” just thought-provoking (and it can be). We have a great library that is often used and are probably the only town in America that does not actually want Donald Trump as president! (sorry I ranted on your comment, just started as I wrote that first line).

I don’t think its the people, but the country and what people are taught to believe when they grow up, this includes morals, politics, manners and view on education.

Its very egocentric: ME ME ME!

In Scandinavia we are brought up to believe no one is better than you, this might sound bad to an American, but its really about humility and learning to see from the other persons perspective. If you haven’t walked in their shoes so to speak. Saying you are better than someone else, or gloating, is very much frowned upon. A poor person? An uneducated person? You are not better than that person, they were unfortunate and you should help, not judge. You are encouraged to show humility.

In America its the complete opposite: People strive to be better than other people, its about being THE BEST, and people seem to think its the only way to succes, happiness and growth. Cooperation and learning from each others differences, not needing to be measured and be deemed better than the next person? Thats not even thinkable! What could their intellect possibly gain from talking to say, a poorly educated black person? A Mexican immigrant? Americans don’t like to speak to anyone who isn’t like them, and if they do its to show them how they need to act/be.

Most americans seem so stubborn and close-minded but see themselves as worldly and wise. They attack people who are brought up where the moral code is different, but fail to see any fault with their own, and thus try to convince others to change to be more like them.

One example could be cultures that dictate you should sacrifice your personal happiness, for the sake of the family as a whole – which is the norm many places in the world. Most people from these family are actually proud to do so, a Japanese person might take pride in taking care of his/her parents/grandparents. Lots of arab women WANT their parents to be on boards and choose who they marry, they believe their parents know then better than anyone and thus know whats best. Many people around the world gain respect and honor by supporting the family as a whole, and many are happy to do so! But in America they will shame you for this act. Anything other than ME, MY RIGHTS and MY HAPPINESS equals being oppressed and lacking independence.

However, the american person refuses to acknowledge flaws in their own moral/culture/religion. Preaching morals about wrong and right to someone else, while not having talked to many people from their own families in years, many not even being aware whether everyone in their family is dead or alive.

Yet they have no understanding for the fact that moral codes and cultures differentiate, and that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They only seem to appreciate culture traits that mimic their own.

I come from Scandinavia and people here are horrified that Americans are only taught about their own country’s history in school, and that they only find it necessary to learn one language, and thus their own culture.

In most of Europe you know about the french revolution from age 9 and speak at least two languages fluently when you turn 18.

Whenever I talk to an American, they also always whine about politics and hate everything to due with taxes and fellowship, unless it means personal gain: They want cheaper and better healthcare, cheaper and better education, but at the same time lower taxes and less government. How exactly is that suppose to work? It makes no sense at all. They want everything for free, but aren’t willing to help or support these changes themselves. They believe Obama should use his fairy dust and create free healthcare with no money!

When you mention paying your taxes gladly to support the system and wellfare of STRANGERS, they almost lose their shit. Why should those losers get YOUR hard-earned money? They are all be lazy motherfuckers and each should earn his own money: After all we are all born with the “same” opportunities.

You managed to go on and on and on without once providing any evidenceto support your opinion. By the way, Mexican immigrants and poor uneducated black people ARE Americans. Unfortunately there are too many Europeans who forget this; probably because they only consider a “real Swede” or a “real Spaniard” to be someone who looks, talks and acts like the Swedes and Spaniards of long ago.

In fact there millions more people of color in the US than Scandanavia has people. We aren’t perfect but we aren’t the uniform stereotype you present . Americans do learn about other places. We have required world history. All of our history text books begin with earliest humans, go on to Sumerians, Hitites, etc. In fact we always joke that our classes never make it to the 1950’s because our teachers stay too long on European history. Your post is not very smart.

The evidence for what? That Americans don’t know about other countries? How did you get that from my post? Or am I evidence that Americans are all ME, ME, ME? That wasn’t really part of my post either.

BTW, I just got back from Scandanavia. It took a little longer than usual to get there from Copenhagen… it seems the non-judemtnal Swedes are closing their borders a little tighter today. I guess you all took a walk in the immigrants shoes and found someone who isn’t as good as you?

Why don’t you get come back and moralize to the U.S. after Sweden has experienced a few centuries of immigration from multiple areas of the earth. Then you can continue to hand out condescending lectures. You know, like you lecture the Danes. And the Finns. And the Russians. And the….

I could go into a lot of detail here, but it all would boil down to the two following questions. Do the poor an uneducated have any responsibility for their own situation in life? You attribute it to them being unfortunate, but when they have the same taxpayer funded schools that everyone else attended with many from poor backgrounds doing well it is painting with too broad of a brush to just say they are unfortunate.

You don’t realize the cause and effect. People do try to be better and trying to be better than the next person is how success happens. I’m an engineer, I did that because I didn’t want to work in agriculture my whole life. What’s wrong with that? Furthermore, when someone is deciding on which engineer to hire they pick the one that they believe to be the better engineer based on their school record, work record, ability to answer questions in the interview. One must be better than others to get the better job. This is what leads to an efficient economy. Would you suggest that the engineer with the worse record be hired? Would you hire that engineer if you made the decision in an engineering firm?

It is flat out wrong that Americans only know about their own history. We all have to take world history to graduate from high school. I had to take a heavy dose of it again to graduate from college, and I was an engineering major. I frequently find myself in discussions with British who have the same idea about Americans as you do about the perceived knowledge of Americans and world history. It’s really ironic when I talk with British that I know more about their history from pre-Roman through the early 20th century and through the Thatcher years. The time since I’ve seen play out in the news. Particularly when discussing the causes of the malaise which culminated in 1978 after their decades long experiment with socialism is something which many British are profoundly ignorant about.

Which brings me to Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries have been hiding behind the skirts of the UK and the USA since the end of the WW2. The UK and USA bears the bulk of the responsibility and funding of NATO.

We complain about taxes and regulations because taxes are too high and government is not supposed to be involved in the economy. It kills economic growth, which means there aren’t enough jobs to go around. We are moving to a collective system when we are supposed to be able to make individual choices. When the government decides, we don’t get to as individuals. Your description of everyone wanting everything yet not wanting to pay for it is more like your Scandinavian country operates than America does. I could go on, but I think you have the basics. I get so tired of talking to leftists, for they have a conclusion in search of evidence rather than the reverse.

Thanks for being so insulting about my country. I couldn’t help but notice you harped on manners yet turned around and used a swear word near the end of your post. I don’t know about the family and town you were raised in, but that’s considered rude where I’m from.

You should ask Puk if he/she is Swedish. Then ask Puk which “skirt” they were hiding behind DURING WW2. I’ll give you a hint…the country is just south of Sweden and murdered a lot of innocent people in WW2.

Incidentally, the best way for people to be helped is by having jobs for people and in order for that to happen people need to be free to make individual choices. Instead we are moving more and more toward a collective system in America. In a manner of speaking, the best social program is a job. People can pay for housing and food and they produced useful things for others. You see, the take take take crowd isn’t those working who want to keep their money. Those people already contribute by producing goods. The take take take crowd are those on welfare who are receiving money without working for it, and they are receiving it from those who do work. Every dollar someone receives without working for means there is someone else working for that dollar without receiving it. In the long run, this is not sustainable.
Something else: People should rely on family and friends BEFORE they even think about relying on the system. The system, being part of government, is grossly inefficient. In family, there is accountability. Parents are not going to help their kids or an aunt and uncle one of their nieces or nephews without accountability. This is a good thing. There is no accountability in the government system. This is by design. It is meant to foster dependency on government so that government has power over us.
This is why government hates private charities. Contrary to your prejudice about Americans being selfish and only about ME ME ME we give a lot of money to private charities. Just as one of very many examples, American give heavily to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospitals which treat kids with diseases for families who can’t afford the treatments. If it was a government program, it’d be very wasteful. There is strong accountability when they have to court donors. Government forces that money from us, so there is no accountability. We could give even more to these types of charities if we weren’t taxed so heavily. The private charities actually insist that people move toward self-sufficiency again and that bad habits be left behind. One can be on government welfare in most places and not have to even pass a drug test. I can’t even get a job without having to do the same, yet my and many other people’s taxes go to people when we don’t even know if they are using illegal drugs or not.
I was watching the evening news the other night. They cleaned out a homeless camp, and one homeless man in particular really angered me. He wouldn’t go to the homeless shelter because eh said there are too many rules. He would have to be in by a certain time at night, up in the morning by a certain time, etc. Most of us have to put up with that, it’s called a job. Do you honestly think that someone like that could hold a job down? A job means you have to be somewhere at a set time every day and be engaged while you are there. This guy can’t even deal with the rules of a homeless shelter. He did say he’d accept an apartment if we’d put him up in one. No concept of money whatsoever.

I agree that we as Americans are not THE smartest (and admitting it is not something to be proud of) but every country still has its own share of “dumb” people. This is not just a national problem, but more of a Worldwide problem. Its like needing stitches in many different places, like your lip and chin, and you only look at one of the biggest and think that it is the worst, while even the smallest cut could still end up killing you.

I never really knew much of this “American Ignorance,” and honestly, the most ignorant people in my school are the “smartest” and are “going places.” My school has a very good educational system as well, where we do “learn how to learn” and our Art/Music system is almost bigger than our sports are (which is kind of good considering most Americans become dumb from the millions of concussions) and we were not taught that every opinion is “relevant,” just thought-provoking (and it can be). We have a great library that is often used and are probably the only town in America that does not actually want Donald Trump as president (or, really, anyone this year to be president).

Truthfully, yes, it is hard to be smart as was mentioned above because when most of the kids in my school are a bunch of idiots screaming “Sports” and inappropriate languages all day, it takes a toll on your mentality and ability to focus among all that chaos. You have the bullies (which at my school are more of “outcasts” as they are not really liked by anyone and, really, have no power anywhere in our school), the nerds (like me and a few of my friends), and the in between people, who have the ability to be smarter and all around successful in whatever they do, it just all depends on how afraid they are of doing what they want to do. That is the downside to the “speak your opinion” thing, because it causes fear. “What will they say?” “How will I end up after this?” “Am I dumb or stupid just for wanting to follow my dreams?” When most people (not just Americans) do not understand something, they automatically go straight to thinking that whatever they do not understand is dumb and not worthwhile, and they will try to tell you that. This has happened to me and many classmates.

Overall, yes, Americans could be classified as “dumb” due to the fear (and the fact that most parents and young adults were not have the best education at the time) but how is your own country as well? Because, last I checked, no country on this world is without its own, sometimes major, flaws.

Human nature is so diverse that the terms ‘smart’ and ‘stupid’ are, in many ways, meaningless. All that you say about America may be true but at the same time it is the greatest, most productive country in the history of the planet… by a lot. I have no idea why this is but that won’t stop me from foisting my opinions on people. I see ‘cognitive dissonance’ in intellectual groups, mostly when it comes to minority groups deemed ‘special’. One most recent that stands out is the question of gender. Most ‘intellectuals’ seem eager to allow and enable drastic physical changes to people who think they should be something else. I hear talk of giving children drugs to ‘correct’ their gender (i.e. stop testosterone from making boys men or, much less often, flooding girls with more testosterone). This can only really be seen as stupid, going against the most basic rule of medicine, to do no harm. This brand of ‘politically correct stupidity’ actually served as a template for later right wing stupidity. There is a cliche that intellectuals are ineffectual. It kind of holds up in many instances. Maybe this is why intellectual leaders are very often quite terrible people, with egos the size of planets and no patience for ‘lesser’ creatures. Perhaps knowing a lot of things makes you more aware of risks and less likely to take chances? Also, intellectuals are VERY cliquey. Fewer of them dare to speak out against accepted dogma than dumb people (from my experience). Germany, probably the ‘smartest’ society on the planet, determines what children will become at the age of 12 based only on test scores. That’s pretty awful and damaging. The one thing America has beyond other counties is ENERGY. People from all walks of life think they are special and can make a difference. They are not affected by the pigeon-holing of test scores. Human nature is messy and counter intuitive. Until something better comes along, the American model is still the gold standard, crazy as it may be.

Free market is the most secured system BUT here’s the kicker. It only works as long as we have smart hard working people who understand work ethics and moral values.

Since the 50s generation we have lost more and more of that value. Can you imagine the greatest engineering marvels of the early 20th century being redone today with today’s dumbed down youth with either all or mostly American made materials?

I don’t think so. They’d just ship it all to China for free labor since Americans refuse to work and want to party,smoke dope and get their hands in the pants of women then take them to a corner making out then they have unwanted babies which they murder…….legally kill I mean.

Thats’s why a certain President got elected twice as most Americans cared not about the economy but free junk handed down that can’t be sustained on tax payers dime.

Europes *right* and *left* wing are totally different as Europe has never had a free enterprise so don’t have that values. You cannot have a *mixed* enterprise. Either it’s free for competition or it’s top down controlled and you better hope the tyrant at least has brains.

It started when the GOP became a Christian brand. The bible rails against knowledge. Followers limits keep getting pushed (gays cause hurricanes or whatever BS their leaders are saying today) and they’re left with the choice – accept the fiction or leave the bubble. Gotta dumb down and stay in the bubble.

The US is on the brink of displaying its true colours to the rest of the world. Never has the adage “you get what you pay for” been more relevant. In fairness though, you have groomed yourselves for this apocalypse for centuries. Your inane protection of your second amendment is mind-boggling to the rest of the world especially when you preach out of the other side of your face how respectful and considerate you are to everyone. Yeah, right. It wouldn’t take much to blow a neighbourhood apart because someone stole your kids bike. You collectively beat your chest claiming you are the “leaders of the free world”..maybe in your own minds. How successful your military is..hmm you lost 1812 – what came to be known as Canada whipped y’all and burned your White House down, you entered WW1 less than 12 months before its conclusion, millions had already died and you claimed victory, you entered WW2 two years after it started and only in retaliation to Pearl Harbour (remember you didn’t want any involvement in Europe’s war), yet you claimed victory for what was an allied success, Korea was an allied victory, you got your butt kicked in Vietnam, and every conflict since has been a coalition. Yet somehow, this has translated into US superiority; must be because of the size, after all, your military is ostensibly your welfare system south of the Mason-Dixon line. Both Democrats and Republicans have enabled an amendment to your Constitution that is more than 200 years old and originally reflected concerns over the “taming” of your western territories. How that is relevant now has become fodder for stand-up comedians. You want the rest of the planet to respect you yet you don’t even like or respect each other..guns for “protection”..seems to be working-just look at all the mass murders in the last 12 months. You people really are bizarre. You seem to be a poorly educated bunch, quite isolationist as you don’t seem to know much about the world outside of your own state and even that is pushing it. It is difficult to engage in conversation with y’all because your experiences are superficial, shallow and unworldly. Your desperate lack of knowledge is legendary and when people call you on it the Smith & Wessons come out. Since the 50s the world has seen US politicians representing big money in California, big money in Texas and big money on Wall St; probably thought most people in the US wore white collars, represented some intelligence and were somewhat affluent. Now that is about to change and the underbelly of your country will be exposed. This should be interesting. One of your politicians wondered why a country that put a man on the moon couldn’t find a good candidate as a nominee..well NASA was originally staffed with scientists from Canada and Europe-they probably didn’t care..good luck in November..

As abhorrent as the Vietnam war was, the contrast between the absolute failures of the americans and the sucesses of the australians are very telling. The 2 were unable to work effectively as the americans preferred to go in with overwhelming force and destroy everythign in sight, where the Australians preferred effective intelligence and tactical strikes. In fact Australian special forces were within meters of the top VC headquarters in the tunnel system when ordered to withdraw.

You believe George Bush Jr. is smart and all politicians are purposely dumbing down… I’m going to stop there and say they are products of stupity as well. America’s slogan should be garbage in garbage out!

Wow, this article and comment section is sad and only shows how dumb people from all over the world love making fun of other dumb people. How is this article an “analysis?” There was no empirical evidence presented, just a bunch of subjective dribble. While I agree it is no longer “popular” to be intelligent in America I wouldn’t go as far to say that the majority of Americans are flat out dumb. America’s true problem is arrogance. Americans are often very knowledgeable in many different areas but have a poor habit of closing their minds to information they don’t agree with or simply just don’t want to hear. I also believe the schools are failing in teaching Americans what they truly need to know, but many Americans have learned to teach themselves. I’ve lived in the United States my entire life and have been all over the country but I’ll only speak for where I grew up. I’m from the DC area. Although it may just be due to the fact that it’s the nation’s capital, Academics is very respected and important here therefore there is a high concentration of college graduates here, making it one of the wealthiest areas in the nation. Although many Americans like to play into the dumb popular culture, being dumb is no longer profitable. College has become neccesity to living a comfortable lifestyle. So I’m not to worried about this dumb popular culture, everyone loves to act different around there friends, but unfortunately for millennials, unlike their parents, a high school diploma isnt enough anymore and being truly dumb will get you no where in this country. So in conclusion, from my observations Americans have an arrogance and conformity problem more than an actual intellectual problem.

It’s true that Americans are quite stupid, for the most part. However, any Europeans who say this while patting themselves on the back are fooling themselves. They are, by and large, just as stupid. The sad truth is, about 70% of the western world is retarded. I can’t speak for stupidity in Asia because I’m not familiar enough for the cultures there (but it’s probably the same there too). Not being stupid requires that one put in the time. Nobody is born not-stupid. One has to practice thinking in order to become good at it. Practice & practice & practice & practice. One has to be well-read. One has to be experienced in debate. One has to be well-informed (you can’t be not-stupid if you don’t even know what’s going on). Most westerners just don’t have this kind of time (due to their economic enslavement & the associated demands it makes on their schedules). Brits are just as stupid as Americans, as a whole. French are just as stupid. Germans are just as stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Stupid is everywhere.

Yuuup. US simply doesn’t value smart people or purely intellectual pursuits. If you say you want to be a philosophy professor, people look at you and say, “but what about money? Don’t you want to be rich? Be a lawyer instead, wtf is wrong with you?” Doing anything just because it brings you knowledge and wisdom and makes you a better person is seen as super weird if it doesn’t also bring you oodles of cash. Financial success is all that matters.

And the unintelligent have no shame and no humility. When I don’t know enough about something to talk about it, I DON’T TALK ABOUT IT! But no, that’s not how the average american thinks. They believe that, despite knowing practically nothing about economics or politics or philosophy, they are totally justified in having strong, close-minded opinions about these things.

Because of our choice to chose like a religious person media/TV/books (bibles) and opinion over real experience. Just because you can spell ball, say ball, describe ball, doesn’t mean you know how to play ball.

It’s weird, on one hand America produces more nobel prizes than
any other country in the world. On the other hand, they have the
reputation of being utterly ignorant of basic facts. But let’s remember
that per capita, European countries dominate in number of Nobel
laureates. So I agree when you say: “The U.S.
is a country where smart people have to pretend to be stupid.” But you don’t explain it. I think because of
the sport culture in the US, that starts at school, you’re being told
again and again that being an athlete is great, and that if you’re an
athlete you don’t have to learn anything. You can go to college just by
being good at sport, and teachers will go with it, be tolerant of your
failures, even tamper with your grades. The smarts guys are being
bullied and discriminated against, watching the muscular dumb kids being put on a pedestal. Not to mention that American
politicians don’t set a very good example, Republicans especially. In
Europe, being smart is easier. Sure you meet the occasionnal bully, but
sport guys become a minority, the stupid ones usually, and don’t “rule”
the class. They’re just stupid and we all know they bully others coz
they’re pathetic. We know that in the long run we’ll end up being better than
them. America is upside down in that sense. Stop idolizing dumb athletes
in high school and college.

I’m from Europe, so I studied English as a foreign language. It took me 6 years of lessons (~3 hours per week) to get the certificate of proficiency in English. I barely ever studied on my own, as I always found English to be quite easy.

And then I finally met some American relatives of mine. I was shocked. Could of? There instead of they’re/their? They also butchered a lot of irregular verbs and countable/uncountable nouns. “What the hell, did I learn it all wrong?”, I asked myself. But sadly that wasn’t the case.

I can guarantee you that if I was about to learn ANY OTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGE, I would NEVER be able to use it better than the people who actually speak it on a daily basis. Why that happens with Americans is beyond me. I like to view it as a sign of stupidity though.

Dont ask me why but for some reason English is ridiculously plastic, the language seems to evolve VERY fast, such that 600yo english is near unrecongnisable, wheras ancient indian scriptures and 700s arabic texts etc are quite readily understood it seems. It is poossible (likely?) this is something it shares with other germanic languages in my observation.
Would you concur?

stop trying to kill everyone who criticises america and learn that if you really love something criticising it is part of the deal because you want it to be the best you can.
What is happening is exactly the same as if you give a child nothing but praise and reward – you get a stupid spoilt child.

Woah- alright, look. I’m not trying to kill criticism. I criticize all the time.There’s criticism everywhere and you’re right about it being important but that is only the first step. Instead of people sitting around and complaining, people need to actually make an active attempt at fixing the problem.That’s what I was trying to get at.

What importance does that have in this conversation? Also, says the one that can’t form correct sentences or use punctuation. If you are going to debate with someone be relevant or people won’t take you seriously.

There’s a difference between legitimately criticizing and randomly insulting. I’m pretty sure you aren’t an English major, for an English major would understand that there is nothing wrong with my English. Learn the difference and then have an actually debate with me instead of starting a flame war.

There’s a difference between legitimately criticizing and randomly insulting. If you were an English major you’d see that there is nothing substantially wrong with my English. Learn the difference and come back when you are ready to have an actual debate instead of starting a flame war.

First, the constant bragging. Most people won’t tell you you are ugly. But if you spend 24-7 claiming to be the most beautiful person, not just on Earth, but on the entire history of humanity, well, many will call you on it.

Second, our government puts an impossibly heavy weight on our shoulders. Folks in Japan, for example, don’t have to worry about having an opinion about Syria… or anything, for that matter, outside their immediate concerns. But we are forced to have opinions on bizarre issues because our government is constantly trying to justify every shade of policy weirdness and we are its toilet paper. Most of the world by far is a quiet, sleepy place (I’ve been there). Yet we are constantly told otherwise and we make fools of ourselves raging about issues and nations we know absolutely nothing about.

That was a pleasure reading this. It did not really get I’m to detail why people are so I credibly unfathomably stupid and getting more stupid at an alarming rate. I was just curious….. “why are Americans so god damn fucking stupid!!??” Well I think I know why it’s rather complex I should rite something on it but not in this post that’s for a book.

But good read though. I liked the end:

“I blame our schools. We learn facts, but not how to think. Rhetoric, debate, logical reasoning are after-school activities.”

“And so we grow up believing that everyone is entitled to their opinion, each as valid as any other, even though this cannot possibly be true.”

I liked that somebody else besides myself pointed this out. I have always disagreed with the above statement “everyones opinion is just as valid as anyone elses”

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that just the funniest joke you ever heard? What a knee slapper rite? Typical American thinking. They always find a way to label their stupidity and false information as honest truth and actual science. It’s not possible for America to be wrong!!!?? This is what they believe. But hey the rest the whole planet not only disagrees but they know for fact America is wrong and stupid when it comes to every single aspect of life.

Here is just one example. I eat yummy all organic curry with organic grass fed non gmo collagen added to it. I eat this evey day I have zero health problems. I don’t drink tap water ect… I haven’t watched TV I’m over 25 years!

Americans on the other hand watch all the time and do and think exactly what it tells them to they shovel garbage down their mouth and pack them selves full of garbage the body can’t even use! And if it could use anything they eat the body would only use about 10% of what they eat the rest is just a waist. Also this garbage is highly poisonous and toxic. So they feel themselves with pure poison. Then they have millions of symptoms from this like diabetes , cancer, add, ADHD, depression, osteoporosis, down syndrome, autism just to name a few but these millions of “diseases” and “disorders” are nothing of the sort they are simply symptoms of eating poison.

Lol they do everything backwards and wrong. Even when presented with good meat like free range organic grass fed non hormone non gmo non pesticide ect. They will eat just the meat! No tendon no skin no fat no cartilage no organs ect… they have an aversion to tendon and skin and liver and brain ect… so they eat only the bad stuff! The muscle meat. The useless part of the animal with no nutritional value that causes health problems lol. Oh and dairy! The other useless poisonous part. So rather then having gelatin and liver and some headcheese. They have the only two poisonous worthless parts of the cow the milk and muscle meat.

That’s just one example but yes Americans do everything wrong and backwards. Every aspect of their life is this way. Medically they are also wrong and backwards lol. Like I said every aspect!!!!! It’s very odd very insane really it’s batshit unfathomable lunacy! On a massive level. I don’t think anything this bizarre has ever happened in world history at this level.

I leave at that. I could wright a detailed series of books on this but no reason to waist my time. Americans are to dumb to read and the ones that can would deny it all just like a dumb American lol. Also the rest of the whole world already knows all if it so nothing new to people that would understand it. There for no point…

As an American it pains me that a good portion of my countrymen are so stupid considering our past. We were innovators who discovered new ways of doing things. Our leaders were educated and took the advice of experts whether in the fields of science, finance, or other fields. We accomplished what we could imagine what we could accomplish, we did not say we couldn’t do it but set to do it. Intelligence was revered, not laughed at. We didn’t elect leaders because we wanted to have a beer with them, but because of their ideas. Somewhere a change took place in the attitude of the country. If I had to pinpoint a certain spot where it happened it would have to be in the 70’s during the Watergate scandal when the media noticed that scandals get ratings and sell newspapers, so the media was looking for stories dealing with scandal. Things like policy was boring, the media wanted to know what famous person political or otherwise was doing something out of the norm. This is why we have such a celebrity obsessed culture. It is sad to see because we were once a great country led by people with interesting ideas now a good portion of the population only cares about what Kim Kardashian is doing.

Don’t forget that the top 2 percent of all world citizens have an IQ above 135. I have MIT friends with 160 IQs who believe in creationism. I don’t and I am a theistic evolutionist. Recently, I got Acute Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy(Guillain-Barre Syndrome) but it did not not affect my brain. There is a real correlation between wealth and intellect. Most world citizens are poor and stupid.

My IQ is 147 and I know people way smarter than I am who believe quite a few ridiculous things.

Belief is the fundamental flaw in logic that makes so many otherwise smart people, or should I say smart capable people, to be utter fools. Belief is something you choose to consider to be true even when facts say otherwise. If you simply accept what is true you don’t need to believe it, it would just be knowledge.

A lot of the stupidity in this country stems from having a two party system where many people feel that they must accept one set of made up facts or the other, and are thus forced to shunt logic and observable facts in order to fit in with the narrow construct of two specialized belief systems. Two party, one party, not much difference, either way it creates a surreal world of forced belief and denial of facts that contradict the party narratives.

What do the known people of American cover all Americans because there are smart Americans not all are dumb. Plus, people shouldn’t be ashamed of being dumb that’s who they are. Also, SOME Americans might be dumb, but at least we have manners and are known for being friendly because we don’t make thinks about other countries saying they are dumb or stupid. As an American, I find it’s sad how other countries think that they are better and could criticize Americans. Please, think before you post because these kind of things can hurt other people. There are the big, known people who apparently , to you , represent America. But guess what, all Americans represent American, so test every single one of us “Dumb” Americans to see if we are dumb.

Sort of ironic that you list all these America First myths about being the inventors of everything at the top of your article which explores why Americans are so stupid.

The world wide web was invented by a person at Cern, Tim Berners-Lee. Computers were invetned by a Brit, Alan Turing. The components in your servers are built in China.

Part of the reason Americans are so stupid is because we live under a soft form of fascism where people need to be dumb enough to believe the nationalistic myths about American greatness in order to perpetuate the order and structures that enrich the few who truly own this country. We have to believe that an American invented the automobile, not a German. Or that Americans invented space travel, the light bulb, electricity.

It’s all part of the myth of American Exceptionalism. Dumb the people down and then create all these myths about American greatness. Set up two parties so the people think they have choices and that our government is “of the people, for the people and by the people” when it really is a highest bidder wins government, and always has been. The two parties keep it simple for the bidders to get what they want while fooling the masses into not recognizing this reality.

American Exceptionalism is not believed by a majority of Americans. Pew Research (2014) found that about 28% believed in it and younger Americans much less so. Anti-Americans, many who are just trying to put themselves on an imaginary pedestal of intellectual superiorrity, perpetuate the idea of an overwhelming belief in exceptionlism.

What I see on this website is “the attempt to compensate for American exceptionalism by emphasising unique American evils”. In otherwords, single minded “Patriots” are being insulted by single minded Anti-Americans.

You all are trying to forward your own narrow narrative regardless of facts, evidence or logic. Now that is stupid.

Group think is locked in. Parrots can memorize and share our what is it now, the goldfishes 8 second attention span? We have major losses in even generic intelligence (I would call it memorization) measurable by standardized testing.

Creative thinking and a grasp of greater context is a form of intelligence we have an uncontrollable bleed on.

Intelligence is not a key factor to survival. The human breeding/bonding process sort of requires a level of its absence. You just can’t blame environmental factors such as fluoride,lead, plastics, or even the educational system. I believe it to be a lifestyle level. Americans are pretty cozy. Many comforts,many toys. Our numbers are high and our aims are low. Success achieved. Most will go the way of the snug in a rug slug. I think as more time passes many forms of intelligence,especially creative, will become the abnormality and mutation just as it once was in our early transition. The dumb will be cozy and the gifted will likely find much success using cruelty over them. Our survival, post planetary consequence of our comfort, is not really at stake.We are legion. It’s our society that is in for a major change. I expect more tyranny with applause, less liberty for security, more automation,hand – outs, less capability,more reliance, more celebrity, more group think until an eventual split in the species. Not unlike the Eloi and Moorlocks. Income inequality is not an unfair thing, intelligence should be reward and promoted, but I guess it’s only the surface of an immeasurable depth of inequalities to come.

Best to try to raise an Eloi. Humans have a poor record in their treatment of creatures and even fellow humans they deem beneath themselves. It’s a mistake to think cruelty and selfishness are impurities removed when intelligence is added. Intelligence only offers opportunity.

America is finished. Americans will cheer “USA USA” as the crooks that line both sides of their woefully uninspiring political system run a once great country into the ground. Democracy isn’t dying, it’s been dead for decades. Only the trully intelligent people in America (and there are plenty, they’re just not so proud to stand up from the pool of diarrhea that America has become) are the only ones who understand that they’ve been living inside a lie. Everything about America is rotten, from the military industrial complex, to the corruption at local level all the way up to the crooks who run at national level. Only intelligent Americans know that it doesn’t matter who you vote for.

It’s dead and is now just a cesspool for people like the Clinton’s, Bush’s and god knows what else to feed off of. And while I’m on the subject, what is with the family monopolies in American politics? Aren’t you people tired of the same old criminal families sucking you dry? Of course not, your too dumb to notice. USA USA USA, etc. You keep chanting it while they continue to sell you out. Dumb bastards.

The constitution needs an addendum…….no more than 1 generation from any family allowed to serve as President. You also need to cut your military industrial complex loose before they start a war they cant control – within your own borders – because thats the way its heading. Still, you’ve been twisting and turning on your friends for so long now. The Nazi’s, once your enemies, are now your friends in Ukraine. Al Qaeda, once your friends, are now your enemies in the middle east. You are destined to turn on yourselves one day in the same manner. I just hope the rest of the world doesn’t have to suffer because of it. If you’re determined to commit suicide, keep it to your own country please.

China will be the next super power. Let’s hope their people aren’t as dumb or greedy. I dont hold out much hope – it’s fucking depressing to be a human being in this day and age.

Get real, Ted Rall! I can never accept that George W. Bush is actually smart, but only pretends to be a moron. The guy has been a failure his whole privileged life and has been saved time and again by his father, who actually IS a more intelligent person. Bush is definitely not smart, and his horrible presidency proves it. Sometimes a dunce is just a dunce, despite earning C grades at a prestigious university.

As for Donald Trump: yes, perhaps he is smart in a sick, megalomaniac type of way, yet he doesn’t fool me. Anyone with half a brain just has to cringe before his palavering rodomontade to know that Trump isn’t smart, and has risen to his striven for level of complete incompetence and idiocy as a presidential nominee. Trump is good at manipulating dumb people to “believe” him because of their fears he exploits, as were Hitler and other tyrants through history. I could debate Trump into the ground if I were allowed to do so, as could any reasonably educated child of ten years old. Bahh!

Answer: no, you are completely right. American here, and completely agreed at that: kids are not taught to question things anymore, just to take everything at face value and move on. It is a stubborn viewpoint that retards not only individuals but the nation as a whole. Pretty disappointing–but, sadly, not unbelievable, all things considered.
And that’s why I am moving to Italy. :D

Like I said, Caucasians have evolved beyond commonsense. And even worse, Caucasians with delusions of freedom and entitlements (Americans) have degenerated into merely “civilized” savages. The Capitalist model of economy reinforces this fact with a little touch of its own problem: corruption and greed

You will hear an American say: “The way to stop gun violence is putting more guns on the street because the only person who can stop a man with a gun is another man with a gun” and you’ll hear another American strongly agree. meanwhile the NRA makes money from that brand of stupidity. I could go a hundred more examples but not worth my time

Anyone who clings to a little more wisdom (natural commonsense) than merely deceptive knowledge (fueled by big money propaganda) will understand this problem is already ingrained in the western culture and it’s too late for remedies. The source of the problem cannot be the source of the solution in this case which is why I propose Caucasians take their hands off everything. It’s time to step aside and let others carry the mantle. The Chinese have proven to have more commonsense and exerted more responsibility over the years. Let them run the world for once; we can learn something while we try to get our act back together

The U.S.A became powerful because they didn’t enter into WWII at the onset, the American people didn’t want to enter into into a European war. America was conned, the attack on Pearl Harbor wasn’t an unpredicted event. Intelligence from the land of dwarf tossers warned of the invading Japanese fleet three days before the attacks, but American industry wanted in on the act, so the information was suppressed and hundreds died, then hundreds of thousands died, in order to make American industrialists even wealthier at the expense of American lives.
Unfortunately it seems Americans have elected to dumb themselves even further since that time. America went to war with Vietnam based on a completey fictional event.
What pisses me off the most is that, like Rome, America conquers by spreading it’s own culture, in this case a culture of anti intellectualism.
This is just one reason I hate America, not Americans, they are mostly ignorant victims.
I believe America has dropped it’s trousers and exposed it’s own stupidity in electing Trump. Way to go, way to become the laughing stock of the world!
I, for one, will breathe a sigh of relief when the Unintelligent Stupidity of Amerigo goes down in flames as it deserves.